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Saturday, 22 February 2014

We welcome our guest designer for this month Desi Zavatta Musolino all the way from beautiful Italy.

Here is my layout called "Little Big Steps". I used both paint (watercolors) and ink.

Hello, I'm a 33 y.o. woman
living in a small city between Milan, Turin and Genoa.

I'm a full-time mother
of two wonderful daughters, Maria (almost 4 y.o.) and Agata (almost 1
y.o.). I discovered the hobby
of scrapbooking during summer 2006 thanks to a Dutch friend who showed me some
special layouts created by foreign scrappers and it was love at first
sight. Now my daughters inspire me everyday with your lives which I
constantly report with photos.

I prefer to create
layouts, mini albums and altered objects, but I'm getting more and more addicted
also to cards and mixed-media items. My style is a mixture
of influences and in some days my feelings are able to define my choice of using
some scrapbooking products rather than others.

Thank you for joining us on ARTastic this month Desi - it's been lovely to have you with us.

You still have time until the end of the month to upload your own take on this challenge. We'd love to see what you can do with some paint and ink or your page. Remember ink can be the spray variety, or from an ink pad - it can be dropping spots onto your page or via stamping a word here or there.

ARTastic followers can enjoy 20% off at Alacraft with discount code ARTS20.

Alacraft has free product giveaways every month. Please visit the site and enter your email address on the homepage or on the page indicated in the link and you will be automatically entered into the draw for $25 of free products for that month. People are welcome to enter as many months as they like, they just need to enter their email address each time.

Alacraft is a family business originating from an established bricks-and-mortar store and stocks a range of quality materials including lace, ribbon, yarn, scrapbooking supplies, stickers, iron-on motifs, quilting fabric, craft flowers and much more.

Time To Create is a family business. We share a passion to create, share and develop the best that we imagine! We only stock products that we use and believe in. Our stock is always priced at the keenest costing we can do. We support Australian manufacturers and many Australian suppliers and try to have as wide a variety as possible.

Try us and see.

January welcomes The Scrappers Garden with the most delightful flower and handmade papercraft and resin range. Who wouldn't love beauties like these?

I really enjoyed the inspiration for this month, but in order to use it for two
comps I had to change the highlight colour from red to yellow. This is my
'little sister' Bronte - I was with her through kittenhood, and then Mum and Dad
moved to the coast with her. She is a very special cat - with a special
personality - so I needed a very special page. I had a lot of fun with the
greys, blacks and whites and getting the textures I wanted, and used several
paint splashes to help loosen it up a bit. I was really happy with the
results!LEANNE

I was inspired by the haphazard background and the splash of blue and red.

I couldn’t get my background to work and in my frustration, the paper tore
and this is the result! I thought I might as well tear the washi tape into strips too! I have painted the bit of pizza box white and then inked the edges. I also inked the flowers and alphas to get the right colour. For that splash of bright red and blue, I popped the flowers and title
against the black and white photo.

February's inspiration piece was very striking and I loved the way the
background was made up free form, flowing lines, surrounding the image of the
woman.

I've used heavy A3 sized watercolour paper for my background and again
used gesso to start building layers. I used a stencil. While it was wet it was
spritzed with dylusion ink sprays. These were quite vibrant and to tone them
down I re-gessoed (don't know if there is such a word) through a stencil before
adding black and red inks and manipulating the paper to allow them to run
freely.

The faces were stamped on tissue paper and photocopy paper and are to do
with the Legend of the Three Sisters at Katoomba.JANE

I've pulled the colours from the artwork and the random nature of the paint and ink work. I was also inspired by the bold black and white portrait and the way the paint made it appear like light was shining onto the face. This prompted me to use a similar image for my page.

I was inspired by the colour of the photo and the papers for this layout. I used the Distress Stains to enhance the colours and link the different papers together. I stamped subtle effects to create flow.

AUBRIEI was inspired by the black and blue in the inspiration piece this month. The
frames for the photos are the extra pieces after I popped out some Blue Fern
chippies. I covered them with foil, then painted the foil with black acrylic
paint. Once that was dry, I used Inka Gold paints for blue accents.Wonderful work everyone !!

We'd love to see your interpretations of our inspiration this month.

Remember we happily accept all forms of paper crafting for your entry including digital and encourage international submissions. All we ask is that you create an original entry for our challenge although you are most welcome to combine with a sketch and/or colour challenge if you wish. You have until 11.55pm on the last day of the month to submit your entry.

Next week we will be introducing you to our second delightful guest designer of the year, Desi
Zavatta Musolino.

Saturday, 8 February 2014

Welcome to our February round of ARTastic 3T's - Tips, Tricks and Techniques where each month one of our creative team will show you are few quick tips and/or techniques to use on your layouts.

This month we feature Tone-Lill Angelskar with some wonderful techniques for creating gorgeously inky backgrounds.

Let's get started by gathering your products together. Here is what I used.

Products : Spray Ink and Ink pads,

Mini mister, gesso, Glue and
Seal,

Black crackle paint, stencils.

My Tip before you start using the ink, is to add glue and seal in a thin layer
onto the cardstock to avoid the ink "running" into the paper when using
stencils.

Here are two of my tricks to create different patterns on the back ground cardstock ...

Dab the ink pad onto a Teflon craft sheet, spray with water using
mini mister (or a regular spray bottle) until you see droplets in the ink.
Carefully spread the cardstock paper you have previously coated with the glue and seal, on top to get the
impression of the ink onto the card. Dry with heat tool before adding a new layer of ink.

Before starting with a new colour, wipe the Teflon stain resistant craft sheet
clean.

Here I sprayed with black ink straight on to the stain resistant
sheet and added water with the mister. I then created a spiral pattern with a
craft tool like a ice lolly wood stick.

Like above, I spread the cardstock
on top to create a new pattern on top of the blue pattern print.

Remember to
let it dry or use a heat tool.

This is what it looks like when dry.

I did the same with red, and created a squiggly pattern.

When I had dried the red pattern on the cardstock I added black
crackle paint using the Prima " crackle" stencil and dried it with a heat
tool.

I added, the last stencil with the leaf pattern using white gesso and blue ink
spray, which gives lovely different shades of blue in the pattern.

....and here is the end result creating a background on the card
stock.

Tip: Use Glue and Seal on cardstock before you start with the ink.
Remember to dry completely.

Trick: The trick is to be "light handed" when
spreading the card stock onto the different patterns of wet ink on the stain
resistance craft sheet.

Techniques: I have only showed you a few ways to use
ink .

There are no limits of techniques you can use to create different
patterns using spray or ink pads. Just be creative and have fun! :)

Finally, my finished layout after adding the photo and my bits
and bobs....

..And the last my tip, I used the red Tattered Angels Glimmermist
to colour the gauze/cheesecloth, and a few light sprays with "Glacier" colour
Glimmermist over the page as a finishing touch :)

We'd love to see what you can do with these techniques. Remember you have until the end of the month to submit your entry for this challenge.

Saturday, 1 February 2014

My goodness January has already left us and we are now in the second month of 2014. I have a feeling this year is going to flash by us as quickly as did last year.

A small but select group of entrants last month. Thank you to those who took time to create a page for us. This month I would really like to see some more entries. We offer wonderful inspiration pieces you are able to interpret in your own way with easy, straight forward criteria to follow. Our design team is second to none in offering you amazing example layouts of their interpretations of the inspiration piece. We have designers from all over the world on our team and we offer a variety of styles and techniques in our team pages. We have four prizes to give away each month - one of which is entirely random so anyone has a chance of winning. We put up our new challenge promptly on the 1st of every month and we announce our winners as promptly on the 15th of each and every month and I have to say the track record for many other challenges sites doing the same is not great. So please support our efforts to bring you a quality challenge blog.

This month we feature ...

Joshua Miels with Pretender

Criteria - paint and ink

Joshua Miels is a contemporary portrait artist who looks to capture the vulnerability of people and the emotions that people try to hind from others. Spending countless hours adding layer upon layer of paint Joshua produces artworks that are not only striking but deep and powerful. Painted with predominantly oil paint, each piece start off with a subject, but with a large amount of experimentation, each art piece has its own journey on how its get from start to finish. The Artworks challenges viewers to draw upon there own emotions and personal experiences. How each piece is interpreted differs from person to person, there is no right or wrong way to interprets these artworks.

I've “repainted” the brickwork on the patterned paper, stippled paint through a template on the background and painted the chipboard piece. Also stamped randomly over the background and inked the edge of the photo and layout.

I found the inclusion of black in the inspiration piece to be interesting. I have
been exploring again ways to create random coloured papers. Of course the wonderful colour of our Frangipani was the
starting point.

Loved the challenge! :)MAJACriteria this month was Ink! So for me it was splashes and drops. I have
usedcoffee, Distress Stains, India Ink and a couple of stamps to make my
background.

Please upload the DIRECT link to your actual entry with the link tool on the LEFT by 11.55pm on February 28th, 2014. We'd love to see your paper, digital, or off the page submissions. Please no back-dated submissions. You may combine witha sketch and/or colour/technique challenge.

Please pop back on the 8th for The ARTastic 3T's - Tips, Tricks and Techniques brought to you this month by the delightful Tone-Lill. You will love what she has done to inspire you.

February random draw prize

2nd random draw prize

JANUARY inspiration is Beach Scene by Arthur Streeton

JANUARY entries

JANUARY Prize

JANUARY second prize - if more than 8 entries

Donated by Karen McLaughlin

December 2nd random draw prize

If more than 8 entries

NO WORD VERIFICATION please

Our Creative Team love to leave comments on each and every entry, so please make it easier for them to do so and remove WORD VERIFICATION for your comments. If you choose to use specialist galleries please be aware we may not be able to leave comments for you.

ARTastic is a challenge blog with a difference. We find inspiration in works of art.THE RULES - You don't need to be arty to play along with us - we accept traditional paper, digital, mixed media and off the page creations at any level. International entries are welcome. You may combine with other challenges. Please include our inspirational artwork and a link back to ARTastic on your entry and tell us how you were inspired by our artwork.